3 years ago, in October, my "Mama Masagna Lasagna" or "Holly's Lasagna" was born. It was created out of necessity and love. My husband's cousin's son was diagnosed with a rare cancer called Burkitt's lymphoma at the age of 15. His mom is also a good friend of mine, and she's a single mother who has a bit of a hard time accepting help because she's so used to doing things on her own. He was on a very vigorous and aggressive form of 45 days of chemotherapy. Once a month, I would hand make and deliver my homemade Lasagna for him, I'd make other foods for him and other families but this was his favorite. It made him happy, he came to expect it, and looked forward to it. And when you are dealing with a young person going through Chemo, you will do anything possible to make that little persons life better. I would take care of my family making at the same time making two pans at once, or throw one in the freezer for dinner on another day. I became obsessed fine tuning my Lasagna recipe. I had a lot of time to work on it over a course of a year. Most every time I would include a nourishing salad, and bread, or garlic toast, and a steamed vegetable. I would also throw in bottles of hand soap, cause we know germs are very serious to people going through treatment, and other random things that didn't cost much, but would be comforting like cookies and cake.
My kids have always loved the recipe I used for years,pre 2012, and now they have been exposed to my personalized recipe which is fail proof and now they're ruined to all other Lasagnas. In fact, if my sister-in-law, mother-in-law, or aunt-in-law are reading this, which I doubt they would, Matt is ruined to my lasagna too. He prefers mine over yours... any day of the week, so if you want to do a cook off, we can. Fuck it, call Bobby Flay and lets do a "Throw Down". Side note to my family-in-law, until you start to pack your own home grown tomatoes and vegetables that you put in your sauce, it's not homemade. If you didn't jar it, or make it from fresh tomato, it's not from scratch. Don't give me shit about the stuff I buy in a jar, instead of your carcinogen festering shit you dump out of your tin cans into a pot and call you "own" sauce. Cause news flash, ''my sauce" is just as homemade as yours and far more tasty (and less work). You don't need to be from the old country to pull this dish off... you need my shortcuts and tips to pull it off, so take note.
Mama's Masagna
Ingredients:
1 1/2 jars of Barilla Marinara
9 to12 lasagna noodles that you need to boil (depending on the size of your pan)
10 oz. Ricotta Cheese, from your local deli, not a container next to the cream cheese that was packed weeks ago.
3 cups Mozzarella divided, fresh is best too, and cheaper at your deli
1 egg, I like egglands best, organic brown are good.
Parsley dried or fresh
1 or two cloves of garlic pressed or 1/2 tsp garlic paste
1/2 medium onion diced fine
1/4 cup organic carrots diced fine
1lb ground organic turkey 93% fat free
1 Cup Parmesan Cheese Divided
Step One- Get your meat browned in a pan on the stove with the garlic, carrot, and onion. Don't mess about with that meat, make sure your break it up really tiny. You don't want to have big chunks of meat when you bite into this lasagna. I like to use a pampered chef thingy that breaks it down into crumbs. Add a whole jar of your sauce to the meat once it's browned all the way through. You also need to get a large pot of water started for the noodles, and get that water boiling. Make sure to add a pinch of salt in there. Not only does the salt make the water heat faster, it also is a great flavor agent to those noodles.
Step Two- Once the water is boiling, add 3 or 4 noodles in there at a time. Now this is where people commonly fuck up, so listen up! Only boil the noodles you need per layer at a time. It seems like more work, but it's not. This way you don't have noodles ripping, falling apart, cooking longer when piled up and sticking together. Don't forget to set a timer for 7 mins. Not 8 or 9 like the package recommends, you want them firm and to still be able to absorb extra sauce. You don't want your lasagna too dry or too moist. While those noodles are getting loose, you can whip up your cheese filling. This is my favorite part cause it's a little messy. Get a large bowl out and you need to dump all 10 oz of Ricotta, 2 Cups of Mozzarella, and 1/2 Cup of Parmesan, and your beaten up egg. Mix until it's a golden mess of cheese. Then add your parsley flakes, don't be shy with those, they make your cheese look so professional and lovely when some one's eating it, they are like,'wow, look how pretty, is that parsley?'
Step Three- Pre-heat your oven to 350, and lets get this pan started! Put a 1/4 cup of your 1/2 of a jar sauce in the bottom of your 11x9 pan. Then you are going to spread that out as best as you can. Don't put too much, it's basically there to flavor your noodles and make it so your noodles don't stick to the pan. Now layer your noodles you just pulled out of the water. You need to put 3 or 4 more noodles in the water and set your timer again.
Step Four- Ladle 1/2 of your meat sauce on the noodle bed you just made. Then get your cookie scooper out, and lets make 12-15 scoops of cheese on top of your noodles. Make it look awesome and spaced out pretty like your a boss in your kitchen. Cause you are the boss!!! Do it!
Step Five- Your timer just went off again, and it's time to repeat the same thing you just did. You want to make sure you put your noodles on top of that cheese, and sort of press down on those noodles to flatten out the mounds of cheese you laid there. Then you're going to ladle the rest of your meat mixture on the noodles and layer the cheese on top of the sauce again with your scooper. You will have no cheese or meat sauce left at this point. And that's a good thing! if you do, hold it to the side and make a tiny lasagna for a frozen lunch.
Step Six-Layer your last layer of noodles, and shut off your stove. Don't forget to pat those noodles down before you do anything else. You don't want a lumpy lasagna from that cheese you spooned on there. Top your noodles with a layer of the plain sauce with no meat that you have left over. Then sprinkle your 1 cup of mozzarella and Parm that you reserved earlier. Then coat with a nice layer of parsley. Gotta go get that parsley if you haven't already, it makes presentation professional and your loved ones will think you are the coolest person ever, guaranteed, even if they don't admit it until they have children of there own. They remember this type of stuff and will come to expect it.
Step Seven- Cover that little pan of love with a tent of tin foil. You need to bake it for 40 minutes at 350. Then take the foil off and let it bake another 15. Take it out and let it cool 5-10 minutes. Most people skip this part, but if you really want to use your taste buds, let it cool down and breathe so your tongue doesn't get blistered!
Here's a pic of how I like to serve it to my kids. They love it. I know it seems pretty standard of a recipe, but this is exactly how I make it, and people talk about it for days.
